14 DAY TRIAL // It's been more than a month since Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, went live, but how successful has it been? The numbers vary with the different sources, but the overall trend is positive. And, in fact, new data from StatCounter shows Bing passing Yahoo! Search in the US for the second time since being launched. The first spike was close to the launch date and was attributed to the launch hype.
This time, the massive advertising campaign may be to "blame," as StatCounter’s CEO speculates. "The jump in Bing's share may reflect a positive review of the search engine compared to Google which appeared online in the New York Times on the 8th and in the print version on the 9th July," Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter, comments. "While its lead over Yahoo! may not last into next week our data suggests that it is slowly but surely closing the gap."
The new data shows Bing getting 12.9 percent of the US market yesterday, with Yahoo! declining to 10.15 percent and Google also losing 3.46 percent, dropping to 74.99 percent of the search market, still a very comfortable lead. Bing has fallen back behind Yahoo! since then, but there seems to be an overall ascending trend, with data from StatCounter showing Bing gaining a one-percent market share for June.
Meanwhile, data from Hitwise paints a mixed picture. While Bing's share of the market grew in June, overall, Microsoft's search engine share has dropped by four percent since last year. Bing also lost market share when compared with May, dropping from 5.64 percent to 5.25 percent in June. Still, Bing managed a 25-percent growth in the last month, from a 4.3-percent market share at the beginning of June to 6.71 percent coming into July. Note that the data represents the combined searches from Live.com, Bing.com and Msn.com.